With memories rapidly fleeting, I find it hard to pinpoint what lead me into the eyes of the dying man. I recall a day just the same as many in following, the cold breeze felt nice on my skin and a brisk sensation overwhelmed me. I felt the air filling my lungs and I'd like to think I appreciated it fully.

As temptation fled me, I felt calm. No longer a slave to a cigarette pressed between my lips, I felt pitiful in my nostalgia and felt wrong inside of myself. Oh how must I have felt? I can't even grasp my mind in that of which is my younger eyes. I feel wise honestly, almost as much so as the oak tree that keeps reoccurring in my thoughts.

It's been almost a hundred years in my mind but time does not flatter such unconventional wisdom. I lay alone, as alone as one can ever feel. Who would have thought my death bed would be that of an asphalt street lay? The cold air that I allowed to fill my lungs just prior in the day, now has forsaken me so. I feel the air I breathe tearing softly into my lungs, I feel the cold embrace of death.

I thought my time would never come, but I guess I was wrong.
In recollection, I always thought I would die on a day where clouds filled the sky. That somehow with my departure came down rain so hard, so powerful and filled with fury. As if the pounding roar of thunder is that of only God cursing himself for allowing me to slip through the cracks of existence. I guess I'm not all that important after all, stained in the blood of youth. My dying hour is here far too soon. but I was never good at keeping time myself, so this can not be sure.

Dying such a strange thought, there's an art in dying really, I now see this to be true.
Death: a concept in which the mind can't comprehend, we often like to not to think of such terrible things, really the point in it seems all too pointless.

The thought crosses the measure of relevance in what deems to be relevant. Just the day prior I laid in my bed filled with appreciation for all that is mine and all I had worked for, to be laying lost in my sheets... I would give anything to feel said sheets once again. Little did I know.

Don't men only die when they don't appreciate life? Why must I be shown all that I am losing, when I already increasingly know to the deepest foundation of that of which is my existence, that I have already lost?

...

With my overwhelming sense of self-importance on the line, I face mortality in it's true form, how fragile I really am I now see. In a world separate from the pain I feel, I am fleeting out of existence trying to forget. I searched for calm in a hopeless place. sorrow moans, bitter, desolated, with a ruthless sensation of despair filling my existence. Oh the despair, it is a pit with immense depth. I would like to tell you how I have explored such depth but I honestly rather not...

For I am the one who can take it, all of it I swear, throw the knife in my back and I will pull it out, clean and polish the blade and return it as I apologize for ever getting in your way. I really never meant to get in your way. This depth I do not wish to explore will reflect in this piece I am presenting, between the lines, the presence is so clear in between the lines, screaming out to be heard, I can barely contain it within myself, so therefor it bleeds out from in between the lines. My suffering, my agony, every face I was forced to find peace with in my fleeting moments! I could not find said peace. It was nowhere to be found.

The darkness fills me and the plagues of my dreams and ambitions brought vengeance upon my waking and quaking mind. Suddenly an empty figure stands in my reality brought nightmare and I observe it and ask why something so dark lives in the depths of my subconscious? I am tortured and beaten and broken, I have taken the world and more, why me? I ask for my own amusement.

I often ask myself what lead me to that of merciful that day, the day time stopped and I reached a new plane of existence, what lead me to be so merciful? The question rings and I stand firm in my footing, as my head turned so swiftly, I locked eyes with God, he took the shape of a moving vehicle. Terminal and homicidal, I measured the weight of guilt and worth and felt bitter in my disdain.

My disdain did not know the smiles of my family's faces, my sister with eyes not yet recording, she would not even know who I truly was, the question sank and I asked "Who am I?" but I could not remember, the dying man had consumed me, everything I am was being ripped apart by the dying man, I felt engulfed in these feelings...

And in my departure I felt so very alive, more alive then I had ever felt. My heart was crying in it's inadequacy, never knowing the touch of true love, I fell short yet again! I have failed... For all their is worth dying for, I had so much more worth living for.  God and his oh so strange faces, he chose to represent himself as my bane of existence this time.

I thought about it but I never no matter the time given could have really considered everything before I pushed that man out of the way, fully and truly I could have never known the weight of my actions. Some see me as a hero for pushing him out of the way, but I see a deep sadness inside myself in the decisions I had made in that of a split second. Almost as if I chose my demise simply to let go, I wanted to let go deep down, and what better way to let go then in an acts of hopeless heroism. I felt pure, almost as if I was absolved of all my prior sin. I thought of God and his true face, the emptiness in the absence of light in his eyes, I felt alone, no comfort, as alone as I felt the day I was born....

And as I embark, so must I someday depart.. I imagined my departure to be a day of overcast and shade, but on the contrary it was a bright day. I felt the Arizona heat masked by a winter breeze and I felt alive, in that of which is my fleeting moments I felt alive. In my suffering, my great suffering! Given the choice to let go, I saw the sky open up, and their was angels standing on the street lights ready to guide my soul in it's leaving.. but I was not yet ready! as I lived this pain, I slowly forgot what it felt to be free of suffering, I became my pain and the only sounds I heard were that of sorrows moans. I felt filthy and impure, moments earlier I saw myself as selfless in acts of heroism but to no prevail were my acts recognized, I somewhat expected the scenery drop to be lifted and to find myself in a dream I simply fell too hard into. But no, no, no, NO! reality is unmerciful and cruel and potent and sure, it is sure as day is bright and night is dim!

I often refer to who I was as characters who shifted in time to become new. I dream to be The Wise Man but I am only The Discoverer as of now, but before that I was The Dying Man(who I am allowing you to know) and before that I was The Ego and Fury and before I was The Hopelessly Hopeless, when funeral progressions play I was The Boy who Throws Dirt, just as I was once The Young and Yearning, and same as I was once The Sunflower Boy who ran amongst the flower fields. These characters are all equally apart of myself, as who I am today is apart of me.

Really we are all one in the eyes of the dying man, you become everything you ever were or will be, the dying man is clairvoyant but hopelessly disconnected and could never really make any sense of it. And by the one in million chance, if he ever were to flood back in to the eyes of the living, it would be like a dream that fades as you desperately cling to the story as the day progresses. I don't know why I fail to forget the eyes of the dying man, I wish I could, it isn't natural, a spoiler if you will, but the eyes of the dying man holds great wisdoms and sorrows, far too great for the eyes of the living man. So you can imagine my return, my great bamboozle of death itself, it was surreal and I questioned the fabric of existence in it's entirety. Where I thought I was surely pushing daisies, rose a pulse and life breathed into me yet again.

See this is not my first run in with the reapers scythe, it is my third but I do admit, I was far more conscious the third time around. My first encounter was my very first breath, my lungs failed me with the tight restraint of the umbilical cord fastened in a noose fashion around my neck three times. I was born blue and it leads me to ask myself how could I ever feel alive after something like that? It's like waking up to falling out of your bed and the day is casted in negative light but so is my life. The second encounter was in the eyes of my former self, I like to call the hopelessly hopeless. My first conscious run in with the reapers untimely swings, I felt disdain, and impurity becoming of me. my head clenched with strain as everything I had ever witnessed or heard. I was forsaking myself as I cried out to forget what was playing before my eyes in two manners, one the life how I desired it to be and the other playing the cold setting of what actually happened...

So I am here the dying man yet again, not because I asked to be but because it simply can be. For I can take the weight of the world and arguably more. I stand a man sovereign in my rights for existence, valiant if not simply in no better words a brave man beaten and broken, always ready for the next lashing. I decide to fight the becoming of the dying man. Will to live! it's really a funny thing, something of such great importance, that no one really ever thinks about, something so overlooked but still so important.

I lay the man aged a hundred years inside his head, moments reflected hours and hours were becoming years, I slowly forgot who I was, and the slate became cleansed. I felt pure with triumph, I felt undyingly pure, my sins were washed from me and I awoke. I felt brand new, I felt as if I were reborn, the dying man was casted into the past and I became the discoverer I am today, and one day I dream of being the wise man but one day is too far to become hung up on anything. I shall appreciate another year in full this time, and for many years following. I am now, what I was not before. I am truly awake and appreciative for if death comes for a fourth blow I want to have new stories to tell my old friend, as the fireworks in my brain go off yet again.